First Thoughts on The Coming of Conan the Cimerian: The Platypus Reads Part CCXXXIV

With the Summer of Shannara safely finished and some weeks of the summer still remaining, I have decided to use the same reviewing techniques to examine a new work by a new author: The Coming of Conan the Cimerian, the first in a volume of collected short stories by Robert E. Howard.  Howard helped create and define sword and sorcery giving the genre its archetypal hero before his death at the age of thirty.  His craft as a pulp writer at that age was already incredible and one can only wonder what heights he might have reached.  At his best, Howard's stories have a reality and immediateness that rivals, and perhaps surpasses, Edgar Rice Burroughs.  Other authors in the genre like Leiber, Moorcock, and Zelazney can't compare.  All that to say I'm looking forward to beginning this quest into the realms of pulpy goodness.

With that said, I do have some matters to attend to that will keep me from posting my findings for a week to a week and a half.  Sorry for the delay, but stay tuned.  Good things are coming.